


Trust - Sheith Month 2018

by Oruka



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Flashback, Keith swears a bit, M/M, Peril, Pre-Kerberos Mission, Sheith Month 2018, The whole gang is also here, but nothing more perilous than they get up to in the show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-06-01 02:00:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15132605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oruka/pseuds/Oruka
Summary: The universe imposes an Extreme Trust Exercise





	Trust - Sheith Month 2018

It was crumbling around them. The last tremor had been enough to force the crack below the monument into a crevasse, and from there the aching, groaning structure had started to fall to its knees.

 

On the other side of the room, Pidge and Hunk hauled on her bayard, throwing in every ounce of strength as they brought Lance, clutching an unconscious Allura, up from the space between. Distantly, Keith watched their progress as two sets of armour emerged from the dust below. The extra-strong gravity had rendered jetpacks all but useless, everybody was feeling sluggish and heavier than usual, everyone’s bones were aching, and after performing more than her fair share of alchemy, Allura had simply let gravity swallow her as the brickwork gave way, plummeting into the gloom with Lance already chasing after her.

 

“Keith!”

 

He blinked and looked up. Shiro had his arms around Pidge, helping to steady her as best he could, but he was looking at Keith.

 

Keith could only shrug. Without his jetpack, he couldn’t make the jump. With Pidge’s hookshot already occupied, and their suits’ wires already spent on getting in, there wasn’t a tool that could help him. He could only wait, for death or rescue. The exit was on their side.

 

An ornate boss from the vaulted ceiling came crashing down by his feet and he took several careful steps back as the edge of his platform crept up on his toes. Lance was nearly at the top, calling encouragement up to his teammates, Allura was stirring, fingers clasping at his arm. Pidge was swearing, Hunk was yelling for his Lion, and Shiro…

 

Shiro was looking at Keith.

 

He held out his hand.

 

+++

 

“It’s about trust,” he said, easily falling into step as Keith tried to stride away. “I know that’s a bit of a tricky one, but it’s important. You have to trust your teammates. Nobody pilots a shuttle alone. Not me, not you. Nobody does it without a team.”

“So find me a trustworthy team,” Keith spat back. “Were _my_ actions wrong? My maneuvers?”

“No, not at all.”

“Then my team’s at fault.”

“No, individually they all scored just as well as you. Objectively, you completed the mission. Only your teamwork let you down, Keith.”

It stayed like that for the rest of the day, Shiro trying to nudge Keith into taking the test again, Keith biting back much fouler language about his team and diplomatically calling them a pair of worthless, hopeless, earthbound incompetents who couldn’t be trusted to locate their own backsides without real time satellite assistance. Eventually both of them had to get back on schedule, and went their separate ways, Shiro feeling like he’d failed Keith himself, and Keith feeling ready to choke the next person he saw with their own shoelaces.

 

Shiro found him in the gym at three in the morning.

“Curfew still means nothing to you, I see.”

Slowing, Keith glared at him from the opposite side of a sandbag.

“Speak for yourself, Shirogane.”

He went back to pummelling the leather without another word, knuckles leaving deep indents where they landed, and kept going even when Shiro came up to brace the bag against his blows.

“It’s about trust,” Shiro tried again, and the next punch made his feet scrape two inches backwards across the mat. _“Keith.”_

“Trust is for people who can’t look after themselves,” Keith replied, stepping forward with a tight one-two that threatened to split the bag. “I always look after myself.” One-two. “I have to.”

“You don’t have to think like that, Keith. Not here.” He paused, cautiously looking around the bag as it slowly swung back into place. “Certainly not with me.”

Tired and now baffled to boot, Keith stepped back, shaking the tension out of his arms.

“What in Orion’s fuck does that mean?”

“I hope it means you can trust me.”

“With what?”

“With whatever. I know where you’re coming from but I really want-- I really want to help you out here. Not just with the test, I want to help you get used to the idea of letting other people share the weight. Nobody pilots a shuttle alone, Keith. Nobody has to face all their problems on their own. Nobody should.”

“Guess that makes me a real nobody,” Keith muttered, and stepped up to the bag once more.

 

Shiro was a distraction in any room. Even as he retreated from the mat and sat in silence on a bench to the side, just far enough behind Keith that he was completely out of sight, Shiro remained a distraction. Keith punched harder, faster, and tried, without luck, to kill the thought. Shiro had personally approached him after his group home proprietor had singled him out as a troublemaker. Just to talk. Just to talk about pipe dreams. Shiro had come back a week later, had handed him the keys to an old, familiar hoverbike and held on tight, whooping with delight as Keith rode his dad’s bike for the first time since he’d been taken into care. Shiro had become his guarantor and sponsor at the Garrison. Shiro had bought him second dinner every time they’d eaten together ever since. Shiro brought him snacks before drills and was there with a water flask afterwards. Shiro had hauled him out of so, so many fights. Moreover, the universe inclined to his presence like a perfect weight, like the star at the centre of a system. Shiro had this comfortable ease, like his skin fitted perfectly, like he was content with who and where he was right now, and that confidence in himself, and his surety in Keith, was contagious in large enough doses.

 

“Alright, I’ll take the test again,” Keith conceded, and knew before he turned around that Shiro would have this sweet, proud smile on his face. “Since you endlessly fucking insist.”

“I already booked you in,” Shiro informed him, holding his tablet up, as though Keith could read it from thirty feet away. “And as per your request, I’ve found you what I _hope_ is a trustworthy team: I’ll be your navigator, and I’ve bullied Matt into being your engineer.”

“You.” Keith’s heart jumped right up his throat.

“Me. Sure. The _Franklin_ jump-start is a piece of cake. But as captain and pilot, I’ll be trusting you to give me the right orders.”

He held out his hand, and he smiled.

“Will you trust me too, Keith?”

 

+++

 

The look on Shiro’s face lay somewhere between hope, and dreadful, heartbreaking fear.

“Keith,” was all he could say.

 

Sure, Keith could jump, but the span was too far, even for him. If he waited, Pidge might be able to lend him her grapple, but if he waited and she couldn’t help, then his dwindling platform would eventually drop him clean out of the world.

He turned to face the wall behind him. Perhaps if he could get higher up, he could add a few precious inches to his trajectory… Just enough to make it. Or just enough for his fingers to graze past Shiro’s on his way down.

A ledge just a few feet over his head might grant him a tiny advantage, but that was already starting to crack.

“I need a grenade,” he murmured to himself, “I need a boost. Shiro!” He yelled, “I need a grenade!”

He scrambled up the wall as best he could, reaching his new perch as another boss came down and reduced his former platform to an exploded diagram of how floors were put together. A cry from Shiro let him know that a grenade from Hunk’s armoury was heading in his direction, and he caught it easily, wedging it between his foot and the masonry.

This was what they did in those old old video games, right? Halo? Destiny?

Jump, grenade, jetpack, and hope.

No, not just hope, but trust.

Lance pushed a wheezing Allura up over the ledge, and Shiro let go of Pidge completely, stepping right up close to the edge of their own collapsing ledge, steel gaze focused entirely on Keith. He reached out behind him and Hunk wordlessly clasped his free arm around Shiro’s, ready to take the weight once again. Shiro kept his other arm raised towards Keith as his own body started to teeter over the edge, reaching out over nothing, buying back precious inches.

“Please,” he begged, “Please, Keith, trust me.”

Keith was all out of time. He was all out of options.

He would never run out of faith in Shiro.

 

He pulled the pin

 

And leaped.

**Author's Note:**

> For Sheith Month 2018. Going to try filling at least a dozen prompts.  
> 'Trust' has been a point of discussion between my partner and I of late, so it feels appropriate that 'Trust' is prompt number one.  
> It's really scary, being self-contained and self-reliant for so long and then handing a big important chunk of your happiness over to someone else's care. But that's what any relationship, any kind of relationship, is like. You hand over a part of your self and say 'I trust you to look after this as best you can,' and you promise to do the same for them. It can be daunting, carrying that weight. That's why trust has to go both ways.  
> I would trust my partner to beta this, too, but they're asleep a good two hours away from me, so, no.


End file.
